Apple: Developers betrayed us

Google’s internal company motto is “Don’t be evil”. It’s now looking like Apple has adopted that motto, not internally, but in place of a proper external security policy for iPhone and iPad developers.

Apple’s security policy for third party apps, it’s emerging, reads something like this: Yes, it’s possible for you to steal the entire contents of an iPhone’s contacts database and upload it to your servers, yes we’ve technically allowed you to do that without informing the phone’s owner, but you really shouldn’t. Don’t be evil.

Responding to revelations earlier this month that third-party apps on iPhones can collect user contact data without permission from the phone’s owner, an Apple spokesman reportedly said on Wednesday that such a practice was in violation of Apple’s development guidelines.

“Apps that collect or transmit a user’s contact data without their prior permission are in violation of our guidelines,” the spokesman, Tom Neumayr, said. Apple was “working to make this even better for our customers”, he said.

Last week it was discovered that Path, a social networking app on iPhone, was copying contacts from the iPhone’s database and uploading that data to Path’s servers without permission. The company later apologised for the behaviour, and released a new version of the app that required permission before the data was uploaded.

Since then, tests on other iPhone apps have revealed it to be a common practice. Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare have all been found to be uploading private contact information without the knowledge of the phone’s owner.

The iPhone’s security system, which tries to minimise the number of pop-ups users have to deal with, allows the developers to do it, but really they shouldn’t do it.

BY John Davidson

John Davidson is the award-winning sketch writer in charge
of Australia's pre-eminent (but sadly fictitious) Digital Life
Laboratories. A former computer programmer, documentary maker and
foreign correspondent, John now reviews all the gadgets he can ill
afford to own.

BY John Davidson

John Davidson is the award-winning sketch writer in charge
of Australia's pre-eminent (but sadly fictitious) Digital Life
Laboratories. A former computer programmer, documentary maker and
foreign correspondent, John now reviews all the gadgets he can ill
afford to own.